Misplaced
by Scarlet Dewdrops
Summary: Hermione Granger died and woke up as young Mia Winchester, twin sister of Sam and little sister of Dean. Join her as she tries to get a grip on her magic in a dimension without the Wizarding World in a family of hunters. (M for language, no pairing decided. Lots of time jumps through childhood before picking up at season 1.)
1. Chapter 1: Waking Up

Hello, and welcome!

This story was inspired by A Stain In Time by Comic Critic, who has generously allowed me to beta her new version, Broken for her. I've been working on this story for a few months now and I have a lot of it written, but I wanted to post the first few chapters to get a feel for how readers like it.

I hope you like this story as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Harry Potter or Supernatural. Though if I did I'd probably still post fanfic of it for fun. :)

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Misplaced, Chapter 1: Waking up

December 1992 -Amherst- John's poltergeist mission

Hermione woke with a yell, tears streaming down her face as she sat up on the bed and curled around herself. Her big brother's arms wrapped around her comfortingly, "Shh, Mia, it's just a nightmare. It's over now."

Her twin on the other side of the bed woke, rubbed at his eyes, then mumbled groggily, "Whaat…?"

Dean whispered, "It's no biggie, Sammy, go back to sleep." He picked Mia up out of bed, holding her on his hip as she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as she continued to cry into his shoulder. She was probably a bit too big to be carried around like that, but she was petite and Dean didn't seem to have too much trouble.

He took her into the kitchen/living room area of their extended stay motel room of the month and sat her down on the couch, whispering comforts to her until she finally calmed down.

When she took a shuddering breath in, she was able to really take in her surroundings. _Okay. My name is Mia. And Hermione._ Her hands twitched and her face scrunched up. _Well that's just not logical in the slightest._ She shook her head a bit to try and clear the cobwebs. _I am nine years old._ Even though that was a fact she knew was true, somehow she recalled everything from twenty year old Hermione Granger. But she also knew that she _is_ Mia Winchester. It wasn't just that she had the memories of life as Hermione, she _was_ Hermione. But she _is_ Mia, and she had not only the memories but the _life_ to prove it. So did Dean, or he'd be wondering why there was a new kid in the room.

The aforementioned big brother broke her train of thought, "Do you wanna tell me about the scary dream? Was it a monster?" He gave her his signature cocky smirk, "Cause, you know, Dad and me will gank all the boogeymen who come after you."

That made her laugh a little, "You wouldn't let them get near enough to even try."

He gave a pained smile momentarily, but covered it with a chuckle and hugged her a bit tighter for a moment, "Damn right I won't, Mimi. But you've never had a nightmare that bad before. What happened?"

Mia's nose wrinkled at the nickname but she let it slide. Her expression grew a bit more serious as she gathered her thoughts. She couldn't very well tell him she hadn't had a bad dream and instead had recalled a nightmarish war from a…former life, maybe? No, if that was the case her lifespans would be overlapping. According to the rules, that was a big no-no on the scale of paradox. No, this was more likely a parallel scenario. She didn't have enough information though, so she'd have to give the broader strokes. "It wasn't a monster or a boogeyman. It was weird. I dreamed that I was someone else, and they got killed. She was…" If she said 'a good witch', her big brother would just tell her there was no such thing, "She was a psychic who helped people, and a really bad man-witch killed her. Me. I dunno."

Dean had to hold back on both the smirk and food-related 'manwich' joke then sighed, "Your nightmares should be about sharks in the pool or forgetting your homework," She interrupted with a disbelieving scoff which made him laugh, "I know, it'd never happen. Exactly why it'd be a nightmare for you." He pantomimed looking in a bag then put his hands to his cheeks in an overly exaggerated silent scream.

This got her to smile a bit and tell him, "Very 'Home Alone'," as she scooted back off his lap so she could look at him and talk normally. She tucked her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees and continued more seriously, "Lots of things most people think are in the 'it'd never happen' category are things we know are real. Werewolves and ghosts and all sorts of things. But we both know weird things happen around me sometimes, too." He opened his mouth to argue that, but she gave him a hard stare and told him, "Dean. The last time I got mad at you, the stake you were whittling turned orange with blue candy cane stripes." He put his hands up in surrender to concede the point, so she went on, "I mean, I haven't sold my soul for magic or anything hoodoo-y. Why do _you_ think stuff like that happens?"

Hermione's memories explained a lot about the ins and outs of magic and the why of her habit of making strange things happen when she was upset. Summed up nice and neatly in two words, really: accidental magic. But she couldn't just tell her family that, they'd blow a gasket! She'd have to ease them into it, starting with Sam and Dean, and as a trio they'd work to get their dad used to the idea.

His mouth twisted in skepticism. "Eh… I dunno…"

Her tone was smarmy as she smirked and asked, "Well how do you explain psychics, then?"

He blew a dismissive raspberry as his answer to that question.

Mia rolled her eyes and pushed his shoulder in an ineffective reprimand. "Dad's already made sure I'm not possessed, I haven't made a deal with a demon for magic, and I'm just as human as you guys are. Something is going on, and it isn't a monster problem."

He leaned back into the couch and stared up at the ceiling silently for a bit before asking tentatively, "So… you think either psychic powers or non-demon magic is the reason things float when Dad tries to make you go to bed when you'd rather be reading?"

She had to give him points for his answer, but only huffed and said, "Yeah, well, that was more scary for me than him at first. He was sure there was a ghost or poltergeist through three states, so then he thought it was following us, and it took _you_ to tell him it was only happening when he took my books away. But you guys hadn't even told us about monsters then, so I was more scared because of how he was reacting. I just thought I was like Matilda. But then he decided _that_ was a good time to tell me and Sam about ghosts and that I might be haunted, which just made things worse because I just got more upset and everything just got…" She waved her hands erratically in explanation for lack of a suitable word.

He finished for her, "Silly. Things got silly. It felt like that dishwashing scene from 'Sword in the Stone', but with lots of things breaking instead of cleaning." She laughed so he kept going, "Yeah, it looked like a drunk rhino had come through the room. We had to book it out of there quick after that."

She hesitated to say it, but Dean would be more open to the idea than Dad would (which wasn't much, but better than nothing), "What if…." she worked her jaw, "What if people don't necessarily have to make a deal with a demon for magic? What if it's possible to be born with it? Like you said, non-demon magic?"

Dean's face went blank as the cogs in his mind started spinning, "That… sounds like a question we'd have to ask a witch." He shifted uncomfortably at the admission.

She scrunched her face, "I don't wanna track down a demon-worshipper just to know that."

He mimicked her expression of distaste then stuck his tongue out as if he'd tasted something nasty, "Yeah, me neither. Something to think about the next time we come across one, though. Though it's not like you could use their hex bags or spells anyways, since they all use gross bits to call on the 'dark powers'," He wiggled his fingers against her ribs as he said the last bit, knowing it'd give her ooky chills. He sat back again and pursed his lips in serious thought, "My guess would be that you're a crazy strong psychic, but…"

Sam shuffled in with a yawn and interrupted by asking, "Dean, has Dad called to check in yet?

Dean only shook his head and told him, "Not yet, Sammy." It was said with the emotionless attitude of something said repetitively, but the apology that followed was genuine, "Sorry we woke you up, man."

The male twin ignored the apology, pouted and whined, "But he said he'd be back _three days_ ago."

Dean turned around and folded his arms along the back of the couch, "I know, Sammy, he probably just can't find a working phone. Or he doesn't have any cash on him to get quarters. There's always a reason."

Mia nodded in agreement and added optimistically, "And he always comes back."

Sammy shifted uncomfortably, "Can we call Uncle Bobby or Pastor Jim at least?"

Dean looked like he was about to object for a minute, then hesitated. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to give him a call. But in the morning. When people are usually awake." He looked down at Mia, "Think you're good to pass out again?"

She shrugged, "I can try." _Nope._ But if she told him that, he'd stay up with her and be tired tomorrow.

Dean leaned down, kissed her on the top of her head and told her, "No worries. Angels are watching over you."

She smiled, he'd told them that was something Mom used to tell him. "Even better, so are you."

He stood and reached a hand out to her to assist her up from the sofa, "Damn right I am."

She did _try_ to sleep, but she ended up awake most of the night, trying to sort through both her own life and Hermione's life, using the witch's knowledge to build an Occlumency mindscape to keep Hermione and Mia separate so she wouldn't get mixed up and accidentally say things that Hermione knew about magic or anything else she couldn't possibly know yet.

It seemed that even with the different memories, she was largely still the same person. Big on studying and proving herself academically, not so great with the whole making friends thing, liked to have rules to follow. Just… less mature on the Mia side, seeing as she was only nine and has siblings who pranked her into retaliating when they felt like she was being too serious. Hermione hadn't had any siblings though. Mia was more glad than ever to have her brothers, especially knowing now how lonely Hermione had been at her age. She smiled softly at the thought of her twin who spent a lot of time quietly studying in the library with her. Never really alone, even if they were being quiet and absorbed in their books. Eventually, when the rough draft of the Hogwarts library that housed Hermione's memories in her mind was complete, she was able to sink into unconsciousness.

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The next morning found her testing herself against the knowledge she'd gained last night. It was, as expected, extremely difficult to do anything wandlessly and wordlessly, but Hermione knew how to do some stuff like that already. Accio, lumos, and other simple spells. Now that she had the know-how, she just had to exercise her magic until it did what she wanted it to do instead of just exploding out when she got emotional. Though she'd have to practice wordlessly from the start, too. She couldn't really just go around yelling 'lumos' until something lights up, she'd be told to explain why she was shouting random latin words.

Her family knew some lines in Latin, but that was more for anti-monster purposes than anything else. Hermione already knew some Latin and French, so it's not like she needed to worry about learning it. Though… she probably should get some learning materials for both in case it was brought up at some point. Her mind started listing off books and other things that would be necessary to explain various facets of her new (old?) knowledge.

However, later that day when she went to check out a book that the Hermione side _knew_ was in print by this time, she was confronted with the uncomfortable truth that this was not be a body, time, or placement issue. It was a different timeline. Possibly a different reality altogether. Because the librarian informed her with certainty that the book she was looking for was never published. She'd considered the possibility already, but having it in her face like that so soon?

With that idea rattling around in her head, for the first time in both her lives she just walked out of the library without doing further research and went back to the motel. She wanted to sit down and play poker with her brothers. Leave research for tomorrow. Or next week. Or month. Family time now, worry later, thanks.

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That's the first chapter! Reviews with constructive criticism are appreciated, flames will be ignored. Thank you so much for taking the time to read!


	2. Chapter 2: Mia Meets Missouri

Just a note: Yes, I know how Hermione became Mia. No, you won't find out for a while. And I haven't seen it used before, so hopefully you'll be surprised.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Harry Potter or Supernatural, though I wish I did.

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Chapter 2: Mia Meets Missouri

June 1993

Dean shifted uncomfortably when he realized where they were headed. He looked over his shoulder at the twins in the back seat, leaning against each other peacefully napping. He asked quietly but accusatorially, "Dad… why are we going back _there_?"

They didn't know that she was still half-awake, simply content to be where she was and reluctant to wake up her brother by moving around.

John glanced over at his eldest and his jaw worked back and forth for a few moments before he answered, "I'm hoping an old friend of mine can tell us what's wrong with your sister."

Mia did her best to hide the wince, because that stung pretty painfully. Not 'what's going on' or 'what her abilities are', her own dad saw her magic as a problem that needed to be fixed. Her accidental magic had been much easier to control now that she had Hermione's memories, but it still happened when she got really emotional and she couldn't tell her family what Hermione knew about magic without sounding like an absolute crazy person.

Dean must have taken offense to the wording too because he defended her as he whispered angrily, "She's not defective, Dad."

John sighed, "I know… God…" He pushed the heel of his right palm to his eye and dragged it down his face. The man was exhausted. "I didn't mean it that way. I just don't know how to _help_ her. Gimme a monster and instructions on how to kill it and we're golden. Give me my little girl making stuff float and change colors and sometimes explode or set things on fire? Throws me for a loop. A _really big_ loop. I'm lost for a rational explanation. Hell, at this point I'll take even an irrational one. I've never even heard of any psychics who can do what she does."

Dean looked back at the twins again, and caught Mia closing her eyes at the last second. Damn. "You don't think she could've just been born with magic?"

John scoffed, "Demons give magic. Besides, the last witches we hunted hadn't heard of anyone being born with it."

It was Dean's turn to scoff, "Dad, those witches were a bunch of newbie weirdos with hex bags and a hate-on for government. Or politicians, I guess, considering how many they offed. I doubt they really delved into the witch community if they hated 'the system'."

John nodded to acknowledge the point, "That may be, but witches don't really make themselves known well enough to hunt easily. And God forbid they form communities. Covens are bad enough. Mia….I _guess_ you could call her powers magic, but… it's pretty far off the map."

Dean folded his arms and murmured a bit petulantly, "You're the one who said you'd take an irrational explanation."

John nodded, acknowledging the hit and the car sank into silence. Hermione smiled a little because Dean had planted a seed of the idea for her.

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A few hours later, they pulled up in front of a very normal suburban home. Well, normal except for the fact that there was a neon sign of a palm in one of the front windows. Mia wanted to ask, but wasn't feeling all that talkative at the moment. She was still pretty sore about what her Dad had said about her earlier.

As was usual for them, though, Sam must have had a similar train of thought. "She works at home?"

John half-smiled, "Yeah, psychics have a reputation for being eccentric, so they can get away with a lot when it comes to business."

They all got out of the car, and Dean wrapped an arm around her shoulders comfortingly and pulled her close to his side with a squeeze. She smiled, knowing he was comforting her because of what their dad had said in the car earlier.

As they walked up to the house, a friendly looking woman opened the door, "Well hello there John, Dean, Sam, Mia. Very nice to see you all again. Come on in now, don't be shy." Mia's eyes narrowed on the lady. _This_ was the one who was supposed to tell them about her accidental magic? She shook her head disbelievingly as the family trudged along behind her into the house, and they all sat on the couches around the coffee table, Mia sandwiched between two brothers on one side and John and Missouri on the other. "Well, well. Haven't you all grown since I last seen ya?"

None of the kids really knew what to say to that since none of them remembered her at all, so they just sat quietly.

The woman pointed a finger at Dean, who was fiddling with something in his pocket, "Boy, if you start playing with that lighter around all my nice flammables I'll take it away and keep it."

Mia's eyes narrowed. So Missouri was a mind reader, and felt no compunction about using that ability to spy on everyone around her. Mia was… mistrustful… at best. The lady must have caught her expression, because all of a sudden the full force of Missouri's attention and power was on her. Hermione growled at the attempted intrusion, and her hands balled into fists.

Missouri's voice gentled as she attempted get Mia to drop her shields, and she must have been talking to John at first but the girl couldn't really tell since her eyes were screwed shut in concentration. "It's so rare for someone so young to be strong enough to repel another mind reader." Her voice became coaxing, "It's okay honey, just let me in." Mia opened her eyes only so she could level a glare at the woman. The force of the power pressing on her shields became soothing and pulled at her in a strange, uncomfortable way… though thankfully much less taxing to block out. Missouri reached across the table and held her hand out palm up, silently asking for Mia to take it.

This only made Hermione's moral hackles go up even more, and she pointedly folded her arms in response. "Just because you have the ability to _steal_ the thoughts of those around you doesn't mean I have to let you in _my_ mind." Missouri's mind was still tugging at hers, so she shouted _legilimens!_ in her head and lashed back. Missouri wasn't prepared for the attack, so Mia targeted a few memories that gave her the broad strokes of what Missouri was capable of power-wise. When she withdrew again, the attacking force grew harsh and swelled again, and Mia cried out in pain and reached up to put her hands to her ears as if that could make it stop.

What was probably only a few seconds felt like minutes and Mia broke into a sweat with the continued effort, but Hermione stood firm with solid occlumency shields. She was peripherally aware of her brothers yelling at Missouri to stop, and at her dad to make her stop, but she wasn't really sure because her head was throbbing.

When the pressure let up, Mia sank back into the seat with a hard glare at the lady and restated weakly but firmly, "Don't like having a taste of your own medicine, do you? I don't have to let you in, and I won't let you _break in_ either. My thoughts are my own, and you can go hang for all I care." With all the self-righteousness and dignity a ten year old can muster, she stood to make the dramatic exit that befitted that line. But… her legs were sorta wobbly and Dean helped her to sit back down.

John opened his mouth to question what the hell had just happened, but Missouri held a hand up to stay him. "It's all right, dear, if you feel so strongly about it. It'll make it more difficult to see what powers you have, though."

Hermione huffed and said tiredly, but dripping with disdain, "I doubt that. Besides, as much as Dad says he wants to know about my powers so I can get help, I already know he just wants you to tell him if I have demon magic or not. I didn't even have to look in his mind to figure _that_ out." She smiled fondly over at her dad, "He just worries." John tucked his face into his hands in embarrassment and she then turned back to Missouri, her tone hard again. "Personally, I don't think it's any of your damned business what my powers are. I'd bet good money that Dad only asked you to find out if they were dark, and I'd bet even more that _you_ were the one that said you wanted to meet me in person." Her dad's expression closed and he shifted uncomfortably, telling her that her guess was the right one. "And you wouldn't be able to tell if my powers were dark through telepathy, you daft cow, you'd figure out what my powers felt like by clairsentience." At the woman's raised eyebrow, Mia rolled her eyes. "I did my research. I might be little but I'm old enough to know the proper names for things."

Missouri smiled and laughed self-deprecatingly. Quite good-humored despite the verbal lashing she'd just taken from a kid, really. "Oh, I guess you are." She turned to face John, "Well, as far as her powers go you don't have to worry about them being dark at all." She looked back at Mia and tilted her head thoughtfully, "They're not light either. Just like the rest of us who were born able to do mysterious things, it isn't light _or_ dark. It just is."

She turned furious eyes to the woman, "Duh. And I'm guessing you didn't tell Daddy that you could have found this out by just touching something that I'd moved with my powers, either." When no one said anything she dragged her hands down along her face in exasperation. "So, what are we doing now? I don't have dark magic and I won't let her in my head to browse through my thoughts like her private playground."

The adults shared a look and John started tentatively, "Well, I thought maybe you could stay here for a while and learn from Missouri."

The reaction was instant and vehement, "No! No way! She'll just go through my thoughts while I'm asleep and defenseless! Its obvious that she's wanted to do that all along, since I didn't really need to be here in person for this and how hard she scratched her grubby little claws against my brain!"

John frowned at Missouri when his daughter described how it had felt. While Mia had had her hands over her ears the woman had said it was necessary, but that didn't sound necessary at all. He watched as his daughter continued her rant, "Two, anything she can teach me I can read about and practice on my own. Just make her give me a book list and I'll figure it out! I already know how to read and block thoughts and I'm obviously already better at it than her, and clairsentience can't be _taught_. That's all of her tricks!" Mia threw her hands over her head in exasperation, making John put a hand up to cover his amused grin. She had managed to get all that out rapid-fire in one breath, causing her to inhale deeply before continuing, "Three, and most importantly, I'm not going _anywhere_ without my brothers."

He pursed his lips in thought. Both Sam and Mia _had_ taken really well to self study, and she made a good point about already surpassing Missouri. He was inclined to agree. The last few months she'd had fewer accidents and had started gaining control over her ability to move things and change their colors.

Missouri felt for some reason this was a good time to butt in, "Sweetie,"

Mia stood from her seat to tower over the others as she raged, "I'm. Not. Your. Sweetie!" Her wavy hair curled, frizzed and began to pop with what looked like static, then she was gone. When she reappeared at the car, she staggered.

 _Ohhh that was uncomfortable. And dangerous. Very dangerous._

She checked herself for splinching, but it seemed that she'd managed to successfully, though accidentally, apparate. She heard voices in the house calling out for her, but after both guarding herself from mental onslaught and wandless apparition all energy had been seriously drained. Exhausted, really. So she just sat down on the curb and put her head down between her knees, trying to take deep breaths to calm down the whole world which happened to be spinning at the moment. They'd figure out where she was eventually anyways. The important thing was to not pass out before getting way the hell away from the mind reader. For a legilimens to work the subject had to be conscious, but she didn't know if psychics had that same restriction and wasn't willing to risk it.

Sam was the first one to find her a few minutes later. Probably twin sense or something, because he usually did know where to find her when he needed to. He just sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders and they sat silently for a bit until he said, "I can't believe they even considered splitting us up."

After a minute Mia asked, "Are you scared of me?"

Sam laughed, "I only got scared 'cause you disappeared!" Then he got serious, "It was scary at first back when we didn't know what was happening and Dad was freaking out, but I'm not scared that you'll hurt me or anything. Turn Dean's stakes funny colors, sure. Bucket of water spontaneously dumps on me when you're annoyed, alright. But there's no reason to be _scared_ of you. Out of anyone, I would know. We've been together since birth. Before then, actually."

Her only response was to lay her head on his shoulder and wrap her arms around his midsection.

Dean came up behind them and draped his arms around them and squished them together, "Ewwww, chick flick moment."

Mia mumbled, "I am a chick, pea-brain."

"Yeah, I guess so. Sorta."

She was only able to glare a little due to severe exhaustion, but she'd make up for it later. John called out to Dean and tossed him the car keys. "Get it started, I'll be out in a minute."

No more than five minutes later, they were back on the road. Mia asked him, "What'd she say?"

He shrugged a bit and told her, "Said if you're a psychic, you're the most powerful one she's ever heard of."

She was too tired to wonder if he was telling the whole truth, which he probably wasn't, so she let it go. "Hm." Mia yawned, "She's not following us, is she?"

"No, kiddo."

"Alright. I'm gonna nap, then. I'm wiped." She adjusted the seat belt to go over her waist and curled up on her side, using Sam's leg as a pillow. No more than thirty seconds later, she was out like a light.

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Thank you so much for reading! I hope you've enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3: Control

A/N: Sorry for the wait, guys, but I am somewhat incapable of writing chronologically. I had to wait for the muse to strike. The downside of that is that there might be a bit of waiting in between the chapters, but the upside of it is that I have over 120 pages written up already. It's a lot of playing of connect the dots at this point, but sometimes that's harder than it feels like it should be, though I do have the equivalent of the season one finale done and a good portion of how they get there written.

Thank you so much for your patience and the follows, favorites, and reviews. Every time I get a notification that someone liked my fic enough to follow and/or favorite it makes me smile. Reviews make me bounce happily in my seat.

I'm sorry for any mistakes (I don't have a beta) and that the end of the chapter is less detailed than the rest. I wanted to include it, but my muse didn't really provide scenes to go with it.

Enjoy!

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Chapter 3

Late June 1993

Mia took a deep breath and let it out slowly to settle her heart rate. She'd woken from a nightmare, but this time she wasn't crying and temporarily inconsolable. Her heart was pounding heavily and she was a bit sweaty but nothing too bad. Certainly not emotionally unstable to the point of accidental magic, thank goodness.

This was the third time she'd had a similar dream in less than a week, and the real problem was that they had been terrifying because they could easily have been _true_.

In this dream she'd splinched herself at Missouri's and had no dittany and hadn't practiced a single healing spell to even try to help herself yet. She could only sit there panicking and watch herself bleed out, holding her hands ineffectively to the gaping wound of missing flesh that looked like a shark had taken a bite out of the side of her abdomen.

Mia's fear of accidentally splinching herself threw into sharp relief the need for a wand. She couldn't just wait till she was eleven to get one anymore, not if her magic was going to go haywire like that. Accidental magic was supposed to levitate things, change the colors of objects, _maybe_ set a fire or two. Certainly _not_ magically haul you from one location to another with no three D's in mind.

By now she had recalled Harry telling her about a burst of accidental magic he'd had; while running from his cousin Dudley and the ever-present band of bullies, Harry had all of a sudden ended up on a roof. Knowing that it had happened to someone else before didn't help her very much though, especially now when she knew about the dangers of Apparating incorrectly. Accidental magic wasn't infallible just because it wasn't a miscast spell. It could go badly just as easily.

School had always been pretty easy for Mia and when it came to her education her work ethic was second to none, so John had given her the okay to do homeschooling years before. He'd almost insisted on it after he figured out that his daughter wasn't being haunted and that _she_ was the one causing the random incidences. It was for the best until she had control over her accidents, really. If they were going to keep her magic a secret it was safest to keep her away from giant groups of people who could provoke her and witness what happens when she got upset. This only worked to her benefit after gaining Hermione's memories. Admittedly, Hermione had mostly magical education but she'd done her fair share of catching up with the muggle curriculum during the summers while her parents were at work.

As a result of building off Hermione's knowledge instead of starting fresh (aided by her habit of monopolizing her older brother's schoolbooks), she was already caught up to Dean academically. Or Dean's grade, rather. He put little effort into his studies, so she was actually ahead of him. Because of this, she was able to fiddle around with her planner and make quite a bit of time available to look for the magical world. If she managed to get her hands on a wand and bond with it, her accidental magic would be infinitely easier to control. She wanted the comfort and control that the feel of a wand in her hand gave her.

If she laid out a compelling, logical case for her need, promised not to use magic until she was at school and subjected herself to the Trace, she hoped that they'd let her, at the very _least_ , bond with a wand to curb the number and severity of her mishaps. Even though she wasn't eleven yet. The Improper Use of Magic Office surely had some precedent for underage muggleborn magical accidents. Though… she didn't understand how they'd track such occurrences without the Trace, but that was through no fault of her own; she'd looked for an answer to that question and found nothing, very much like the 'nothing' on why and how the Trace broke when you turned 17 or how it even was cast on students in the first place.

The method of imbuement was unknown (probably to confound kids like Fred and George from getting around it somehow), but it was widely speculated that the Trace was cast on you when you got on the Hogwarts Express somehow. Which made sense in its own way since Hermione had practiced a good number of spells from _The Standard Book of Spells: Grade 1_ the summer before first year and had never received a warning like Harry about underage magic. But… then how did the Ministry known when a muggleborn broke the Statue of Secrecy with accidental magic as a younger child?

Mia chewed her lip and then the cap of a pen as she pondered the situation further.

There had to be _some_ method or the Wizarding World would have been exposed ages ago by clueless kids making the impossible possible. And she knew for sure that the Ministry undid accidental magic; there was a whole team for it! The Accidental Magic Reversal Squad was a part of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. They were the ones who had undone Harry's blowing up of his aunt and modified her memory of the incident… though that wasn't a very good example since that was after he'd started Hogwarts. She wasn't very well versed in the MACUSA departments, but she didn't dare try and cast something in public to try and get the American version of that Department's attention, though. That was just asking for trouble.

Looking for the magical world led to her usual haunt of, you guessed it, the library.

On the walk there, she did quite a lot of mental digging to remember that the MACUSA headquarters was in the Woolworth Building in New York, and that you had to use a wand to get into the area, much like Diagon Alley. But you had to go through the anti-muggle warded Leaky Cauldron to get there, where MACUSA had no such help. At least at the Leaky she could ask Tom to help her get into the Alley; she couldn't just go stand in the lobby of the Woolworth building and hope to see someone with a wand, now could she? ...Right?

When she arrived at the library, she was about to pull out a map of New York. But it would be pointless, she realized; the building itself wasn't disguised, just the wizarding entrance to it. Out of idle curiosity, though, she wondered if the Leaky Cauldron was unplottable since it wasn't technically _in_ Diagon Alley like the rest of the stores, so she pulled out some maps of London instead.

She set the map carefully across a nearby desk and sat forward in the seat to look at where the Leaky Cauldron should be. Mia froze in horror when she spotted it. The land was on the map. The land of _Diagon Alley_ was _on the map_. Mia's stomach dropped out a bit at that, and the next hour was spent desperately searching for other, more detailed, maps and pouring over every single location she knew to be unplottable to muggles. Not a single piece of land missing. The land the Burrow was built on was part of a golf course!

Mia sat at the encumbered table doing her best to take deep breaths and calm herself enough that she wouldn't inadvertently make the maps start tap dancing or something equally un-muggle.

Even if there was or wasn't a way for her to get into MACUSA, she'd counted on the fact that at least she knew of the Wizarding World overseas. Even if it wasn't readily available to her at the time, it was a source of comfort to just know it was there. But… No Diagon Alley meant no Ollivander's, which meant no hope of getting a wand, which meant no shortcut to control. _Crap._ Hermione's head thudded down against the library table with an agonized groan. Could it really be that she'd ended up in a timeline or reality _so_ different that the Wizarding World was just… nonexistent?

Deep breaths.

It didn't help that Mia didn't know anything about wand creation except the basic of basics; cores came from magical creatures, and there were various woods that could be paired with them. She sorely regretted not studying the subject any further now. Even if she somehow managed the highly unlikely task of getting the ingredients for her previous wand, there was real work that went into making one. You couldn't just thread a core material through the wood and hope for the best or Ollivander would be out of business. Though, on the upside of that, no monitored Trace to get her in trouble for underage magic. That was the only upside she could think of at the moment.

Oh, also, not scaring the bejeezus out of her dad when a school representative showed up and him trying to shoot the visitor was probably an upside, as well. She'd never heard of a wizard being shot, but she imagined that without an exceedingly quick shield spell they were just as vulnerable to bullets as muggles.

After letting herself wallow in self-reprimand about wand crafting for ten minutes, she mentally picked herself up and decided that if she couldn't get a wand then she'd just have to work something else out. First off, until she figured out a wand alternative she would intensify her meditation exercises. She had managed to solidify the basics of her Occlumency and was already working on the mid-range protections. It wasn't very difficult since she already knew how and it didn't require a wand, but any spell she'd tried to channel so far was weak unless it was emotionally charged accidental magic. Like with her apparition incident at Missouri's. That wasn't a fault of knowledge or skill, though, that was just a young and unstable magical core expressing itself.

A shudder ran through her whenever she thought of how badly that could have turned out. Splinching herself with no essence of dittany and no St. Mungo's could easily be fatal. Speaking of which. Potions. The majority of her potions knowledge was useless unless she could find the right ingredients; very few were entirely comprised of components that could be found in the muggle world.

For the second time in her life, Mia left the library without doing further research. She could have picked up a couple new books on meditation or occult studies to try and find out where things went so haywire. No. She'd go back to the motel and watch TV with Dean. Maybe he'd make her some s'mores over the stove. No, wait. Dad had taken him on a hunt and they wouldn't be back for another few days at least.

Maybe sit down with Sam and ask him why he'd taken to talking to thin air in the last week or so.

Sam scoffed and folded his arms petulantly, "I'm not talking to air," he insisted, "I'm talking to Sully!"

Mia blinked a few times and asked hesitantly, "And Sully is…?"

Her brother rolled his eyes and told her as if it was obvious, "He's my friend. And he's right here," he gestured to the empty bit of couch next to him, "so I don't get why you're pretending like he's not." He turned his head to the side and his shoulders slumped, "Oh. He says you can't see him. Sorry."

"Okay," she drawled, and leaned back in her seat. Running a list through her mind of things this Sully character might know that Sam wouldn't, she picked something at random and addressed the empty space, "Sully, do you know what a thestral is?" For some reason, the invisible winged horse seemed like a good idea to ask an unknown invisible magical creature about if he really did exist and Sam hadn't simply gone bonkers.

He turned his head as if looking up at someone while they were talking and told her, "He says he's never heard of it."

Well, that wasn't a great question. She had no clue if they'd ever existed in this dimension. Timeline. Reality. Whatever. "What about a manticore?"

Sam's face scrunched up in confusion, but turned to the empty spot where 'Sully' was and listened before saying, "Gross." Sam turned back to her, "Sully says it has a human head, a lion body, and lots of sharp teeth." He paused again to listen, "There were two kinds, some had wings and some had tail-stingers." Another pause, "But they don't exist anymore. Oh, and he wants to know how you move stuff. I told him you do it with your head, but I don't really get how you do it."

Mia blinked a few times. _Okay. So there really is an invisible being of some sort hanging around. That's… weird. And Sam's decided that it was a good idea to share my abilities with him. Great._ She didn't much like how curious this Sully was about her magic, though, so she raised her hand and cast a spell she hadn't tried yet. _Homenum Revelio!_

A marker appeared over the empty space for a split second before flickering away and the spell failed. She wondered if the spell would ever really take hold even after she'd mastered it since Sully probably wasn't actually human. The fact that it found him at all means he's probably human-ish looking at least.

Sam's attention darted back and forth between Sully and Mia for a few seconds, then told the empty space, "I dunno," then a few seconds after that he did his duty as translator, "He wants to know how you did that. I didn't see anything move, though. Did you learn something new?"

Mia addressed her brother first and told him, "Sort of, but not really." Then she leaned forward and asked the Sully-space curiously, "What did it feel like?"

"He says it felt like something whooshed right over his head."

She bit at her lip, thinking for a moment before she told the empty space, "I'll tell you how I did it if you let me see you. It's only fair." She shifted uncomfortably and added quietly, though truthfully, "I won't be able to practice if I think someone could be spying on me all the time."

Sam denied the accusation, "He's my friend, he wouldn't do that!"

Mia's gaze hardened on her twin, "We've already had family meetings about this. _No one_ is supposed to know. You've already told someone you've let into our… well, not home, but our room. Someone you've only known for a week, and told him about what I can do even though I've never met him and even though you're not supposed to. What if he tells someone else?"

Sam looked sheepish, then went pale as Sully no doubt said something, "Oh. Really?" His shoulders slumped, and he looked up guiltily at her. "He says that his mind is connected to his friends' so they might find out, but he'll try to keep it to himself." At Mia's anger and reddening face, he put his hands up and said quickly, "But he says even if they know, they won't tell anyone! They don't tattle secrets!"

Mia sagged in her chair. Well, there goes the rest of her day. Tears started building up and she had absolutely zero control left. The wizarding world didn't exist, she'd never get to see Hogwarts again, she'd never feel the comforting warmth of a bonded wand again, she was limited to only the spells she could remember from before because there were no books about _real_ magic here, and now an unknown number of telepathic invisible magical beings knew she was capable of supernatural feats because her brother had gone and blabbed to the first creature who'd believe him about the most important thing to keep his trap shut about. It could get her killed or kidnapped and used as a guinea pig in some lab somewhere! There was no Statute of Secrecy or Ministry to protect her from things like that here!

Through the tears she saw that a blurry something was hovering in front of her and she heard the telltale pop of a light bulb or five burning out. Sam gasped, "Oh, crap!" She heard his footsteps rush across the room and the sound of curtains being dragged closed. "Phew!"

Mia made an attempt to take big breaths and calm herself down, but it didn't help at all. She curled in on herself and tucked her knees up to her chest, "Ter-ble ay," she hiccuped, and that was followed by something unintelligible though she'd meant to say something along the lines of, 'this is a terrible day'. It doesn't really come out that way when your power of speech is shanghaied by sobs and trying to breathe between them.

A box of tissues found its way into her hands, so she made use of it. Liberally.

When she finally stopped blubbering and it faded to shuddering breaths, she opened her eyes to find a worried-looking Sam with a plate of s'mores in his hands. She blinked a few times to be sure she wasn't hallucinating because it didn't look at all like Sam's last attempt at anything involving food; a half-burnt, half-soggy mess of inedibleness. This, however… it looked perfect.

"Sully says sorry he made you sad. I'm sorry too."

"It's not your fault," she sniffed, but then fixed him with a bleary stare and corrected, "Well, tattling was totally your fault and we'll definitely talk about that," he winced, and she went on, "but not right now. There was just a lot of… stress and stuff today. I think that was just the straw the broke the camel's back, you know?"

He sat down next to her, put the plate in her lap, snatched a s'more, and leaned up against her as he nibbled. "Nope. What's a camel doing with straw, anyways? Aren't camels supposed to be in the desert?"

She shouldered him playfully and ignored his smartass remark, "Where's Sully right now?" Sam pointed in a direction slightly to the left in front of them. "Thank you for the treats." Mia didn't necessarily trust the guy, but he seemed a decent enough sort so far.

Mia was exhausted, so she told Sam, "I've had quite the day and I'm pooped. I'm gonna take a nap, okay?"

Sam nodded, "Sure, Mia. Sleep tight."

Later that evening, Sam had already gone to sleep but Mia was still wide awake due to her nap earlier. Sully must have been nearby, because she started feeling… lighter. Oh well, she wouldn't call Sam out on having an imaginary friend.

After a few days of moping, Dean and John finally came home. Noting her downtrodden mood and Sam's distraction, John took the family out to the woods and taught her how to shoot. (She'd been busy studying something or another when Dean took Sam out to teach him ages ago.)

For some reason she felt a lot better after that. Maybe there was something to be said about destroying inanimate objects to make yourself feel better.

With the general improvement in mood, Mia sat down to take stock of her current magical situation.

Her progress so far practicing without a wand was slow going, and she suspected wandless magic wouldn't get any easier for a long time. Her magical core had some serious growing up to do before she'd have the reserves at her disposal to cast wandless spells without exhausting herself after only an hour of practice. The problem with that was that without exercise, her magic would stagnate. At this point, she was basically only exercising the magical equivalent of her endurance instead of strength. She needed something to help her focus her magic and perform higher powered spells to stimulate growth, but didn't know how to manage that just yet.

For the rest of June and most of July she studied myths and legends of magical items hoping to find one that would help, until she had a eureka moment. Runes. It was such a simple answer that she hadn't even considered it. If she could use runes as a focus, she can attempt to do wandless magic. One of the schools… Uagadou School of Magic, that was it. That school taught their students wandless magic through finger-pointing and gestures. She may not have an instructor or the know-how, but at least there was precedence. Mia was smart. She'd figure something out.

After a further two months of research and experiments done in between her usual studies (both monster and academic) it was fall when Mia finally figured out the optimal runic string focused on concentration and control that would help her.

September 1993

"Hey Dean…" Mia drawled out innocently, "You know that you're the coolest, strongest, badass-est big brother in the world, right?"

He put his hand to his chest in mock shock, "Language, young lady!" He smirked at her knowingly and leaned forward so he was at eye level with her when he asked playfully, "What do you want, Mimi?"

Mia held up the paper with the runes on it in her right hand, "Can you carve these," she held up the wooden bangle bracelets she'd bought at the thrift store in her left, "Into these?"

"Finally figured it out, huh?" He took the paper from her and studied it. "Mmm… It'd be easier to burn it into them. They've got the tools in shop class. Tell you what, we've been assigned a free project. How about I make you these from scratch and I get a grade out of it?" She smiled and rushed up and threw her arms around his neck and told him 'thank you thank you thank you', but then he added, "You want them on the outside or the inside?"

She pulled back and blinked a few times. Pyrography or carving, placement, and material were things she hadn't considered. She'd already established with a paper bracelet trial that it worked to some extent. Would wood or metal work better? Would the placement make them more or less effective? She thought back to what she knew of runes in general. Placement of runes was key in a lot of situations, but whether it was on the inside or outside of jewelry? "Paper and ink worked some, so I don't see that it should matter either way. Whatever's easier for you."

He smirked in his 'I'm going to say something irritating' way and told her in a thoughtful drawl, "Maybe I'll do the runes on the inside then do a bunch of unicorns on the outside." At her glare, he only laughed then asked innocently, "What? Girls like unicorns, right?"

Her shoulders sagged, "Ugh, you ruined the moment. I gave you a hug and everything, too."

He ruffled her hair. "You know me."

She rolled her eyes at and mimicked his tagline before he could say it, "No chick flick moments." It was her turn to smirk, "But you tend to make exceptions to that rule a lot when it comes to me."

He was unaffected by the taunt and told her simply, "Well if I'm gonna break the rule for anyone, why shouldn't it be for my little sister?" As he spoke, he moved into the kitchen and pulled out a bag of microwave popcorn.

She trailed after him and noted the choice in snack so she asked, "Are we watching a movie?"

He gave her his best devilish smile, "As payment for this favor, we're going to watch Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink back to back and you will never tell anyone about it _ever_ , and when Sam comes back from school you have to cover for me."

She put her hand over her heart and stood at attention, "I shall do my best, good sir. As far as anyone else is concerned, I called dibs on the TV and tried to bite you when you attempted to watch something else."

"That's a good idea. Actually," he offered her his forearm, "bite me so I'll have proof."

She stared disbelievingly at the appendage as if it had insulted her. Mia shook her head and tutted at him, "Too obvious, your reflexes are way better than that. You know Sammy secretly likes those movies too, right? He'll make a fuss but sit down to watch it with us and then you'll both blame it on me. Even though I'm the one who actually likes them the _least_ and would rather be reading."

He didn't bother denying it and just smiled, "And that's why you're the best little sister."

She moved back over to the couch, grumbling, "I'm your only little sister, doofus." _First he tells me no chick flick moments than badgers me into watching chick flicks. Brothers._

A few beeps of the microwave were audible before he called over from the kitchenette, "Oh, and if you don't mind doing my english paper for me…?"

She rolled her eyes, "I already did it, it was easy. I even used Dean-vocabulary. Actually, shouldn't you be at school right now, too?" A few years ago she would have admonished him about not caring about his education, but he was already in what amounted to vocational school for hunter life. Not to mention quite the accomplished mechanic.

He pinched her cheek and cutesy-voiced at her, "What, and miss spending time with my kid sister?" He let go and judging by his expression he'd just had a lightbulb moment, "Speaking of which, can you forge another sick note for me?"

A week and two new runic bracelets later, Hermione was testing her skills and found that the wood bracelets worked much better than the paper version ever hoped to. Maybe it was the permanence of the object, maybe not. Figuring that out would require further testing, which she decided would be worked out later. She was just glad that it worked, even if was only a fraction of the control a wand gave her. Then again, it might have to do with her age. Mia sighed at the list of things she needed to figure out. But that was later. Now was time to practice her spellwork.

Dean caught her practicing a few days later. "Telekinesis is coming along really well."

She didn't correct him on her use of the Accio spell. The rubix cube floated gently through the air to her instead of how it used to drag itself lazily along the floor, getting caught on invisible ruts that required her to tug hard with her magic. "I used the rings you made for me as a focus."

He frowned and crossed the room, picked up one of her hands to examine said objects and said suspiciously, "Rings? I'm _pretty_ _sure_ that they were bigger than that."

She shrugged and informed him haughtily, "I… may have resized them… a little."

Dean raised a brow and exclaimed incredulously, "A little! They were bracelets!"

She smiled and tugged at a curl as she admitted bashfully, "Yeah… The plan was one bracelet for each hand, and they helped, but not as much as I'd hoped. Doubling them up on one hand gave it a little extra oomph, though, and moving them from my wrist to my fingers helped even more for some reason. Maybe because they're not as loose this way... more skin contact with the material? I dunno yet. More testing required on that." She looked up at him, giving her best puppy eyes. "Do you think you could make more? Maybe out of a different, harder, material? The more focus I can manage on one hand, the better control I'll have and the more difficult stuff I'll be able to do." She finally addressed his complaint about the original size with a smug smirk, "And anyways, could you have made the symbols small enough for a ring?"

He curled a lip up at the thought of trying to work in that small of detail. "Mmmm…nope. I mean, maybe, but I wouldn't want to. Like, at all." He shook his head with his cheeks loose so they made a wrbl-wrbl-wrbl sound, then added while he mussed her hair with his hand (which earned him an indignant squeal from her), "I'll see what I can do about making more of them for you."

When he brought her the next set, it was an interesting combination. One was made of the same type of wood as before, and the other was different type of wood - they weren't up to metalworking in shop class, apparently - but she was surprised to see he'd burned the runes into both the outside and inside of the ring. Well, bracelets at first, but that was soon fixed. She was delighted to find that doubling up exponentially increased the control.

Dean received a giant hug and his first ever, "You're so smart! I can't believe I didn't think of that!" from his little sister. It was a proud day for him. She even continued with the adulation, "You even made them from different types of wood so I can find out if there's a power difference in the type of wood! I didn't even think of using one type of wood as a control to compare against other types, I was only thinking of metals, not varying types of wood." All of a sudden he was hit with the notion that he'd be making these bracelet-turned-rings in plenty in the near future, and possibly for a long while after that. _Oh well,_ he thought to himself, _most schools have a class with the right equipment, and if not there's hobby shops with equipment for rent all over the place._

After that her Accio summonings weren't lazy dragging or gentle floating, they were a quick snap through the air to her waiting hand. Her Wingardium Leviosa levitations weren't wobbly or hard to get off the ground, they were smooth and sailed through the air as she guided the objects with her pointed finger. Her Unlocking spell didn't give halfway through, and her mending charm didn't look like someone had crumbled the fabric before sewing it shut that way. _I can do first year level magic now._ Well, she admitted to herself, Accio wasn't taught at first year, but it wasn't a particularly difficult spell when what you were summoning was in your line of sight.

December 1993

By Christmas, practicing spells with the rings and getting a feel for them without her wand saw her able to do those same spells without the rings on as well. Not the same snappiness or grace that the runes provided, but a marked improvement from where she'd started at the beginning of fall. Therefore, it stood to reason that she was building her magical strength at a decent rate, and as long as she didn't become too dependent on the rings she'd be able to eventually cast most, if not all, the spells she knew before. Hopefully wordlessly as well. So far only the first year spells were the ones she could manage to effectively cast without speaking, but in time she would tackle more and more difficult spells. If she wanted people who were in the know to think of her spells as psychic powers, she'd certainly need to be able to do them without advertising the strange use of Latin.

A protean charm for their constantly "traveling" father would be nice someday, though knowing him he probably wouldn't touch whatever she'd spelled it with. Speaking of whom, he hadn't really been around much (as per usual), but when he was in between hunts she tried to practice when he wasn't in or was sleeping. She knew what she could do bothered him and that he was relieved she wasn't having explosive or particularly noticeable bouts of accidental magic anymore. This curbed her practice time, but it was worth it to preserve her relationship with her dad. The less he saw of it, the more comfortable he seemed around her. Maybe he thought she'd got the basics down and therefore it was under control and to be swept under the rug? He probably wouldn't approve of her putting so much of her time into practicing and developing her 'abilities', but what he didn't know, right? Dean and Sam wouldn't rat her out, anyways. _Especially Dean,_ she smirked, _as he's become my accomplice by making my rune-rings for me._

Sam had been badgered into being involved as well.

 _She'd spent quite a bit of time practicing her Disarming Charm against him, always making sure to cast a Softening Charm on the floor and wall behind him first in case it knocked him back instead of just making him drop whatever he had in his hand at the time. At first, when her attempts were completely ineffective, he started working on flashcards while he stood and waited for nothing to happen. The joke was on him though; the first time it did work, his study aid burst into a torrent of the small white cards fluttering around the room and to the floor._

 _Mia was bouncing around doing the happy dance because it'd worked; Sam was dreading the epic clean-up required._

 _With a long-suffering sigh covering his smile at her giddiness, he bent over to start the painstaking process of picking them all up. When she calmed down enough to stop bouncing, she was riding high and carelessly used an Accio on the cards, meaning to summon them one at a time (she hadn't experimented with trying to summon two things at once) and ended up landing hard on her bum with a couple paper cuts when_ all _of the cards came whooshing at her._

 _Mia blinked, shocked at the turn of events, and Sam burst into laughter so loud that in brought Dean into the room who raised an incredulous brow at the scene._

She smiled at the memory, then thumbed the rings on her middle finger and spun them around idly while she sunk deeper in thought. It was the kind of thinking that would see her brothers' hair turned some shade of randomized neon color if they interrupted her. _If runes work…_ Her mind flitted back and forth between ancient symbols and sigils she'd come across during monster and artifact research.

Ancestral Puebloan symbols would be the first she looked into, she decided, since they were in the southwest at the moment and was far more an ideal location than, say, Florida, for studying the Ancestral Puebloan people, (and no matter how many times she told her dad that Anasazi meant 'ancient enemies' and was not politically correct, even if it was a recognized historical term, he kept on using it). After that, a study of ancient languages, perhaps? Many dead languages were from cultures steeped in mythology and possibly true supernatural occurrences.

Christmas that year was, as it was more often than not, John-less. But the siblings made do as usual with homemade gifts for each other. Dean had stopped trying to steal gifts from other families a few years before after a bout of completely unsuitable gifts up to and including a Barbie doll and bicycle streamers. They had a good laugh over it, but after that Hermione insisted they either save up for presents or make them. It was no good, in her opinion, to take gifts they might not even want away from another kid, though she'd made sure to tell him that she appreciated the sentiment. Not in those words though; she'd still been little(er) at the time.

Sometimes one of their honorary uncles would give them gifts to give each other, like when Uncle Bobby gave Sam the necklace to give to Dean. Something about the odd little horn-headed pendant had made him so happy that Dean never took it off.

This year, Mia noticed that a lot of cassettes were being put on sale as CD's made their way into mainstream, so she and Sam had teamed up and saved half of their pocket money for months to get Dean a collection of cassettes from all his favorite bands, presented to him in a newspaper-wrapped shoebox.

When John returned a week later, Mia presented him with a late Christmas gift: the fruits of her research on the Ancestral Puebloans. A specific ring of symbols that popped up together frequently and were assumed to be used as protection.

* * *

A/N: There's chapter three! I know it's quite a bit longer than chapters one and two. If you have a preference in chapter length, please let me know and I'll try to accommodate. Otherwise, it's going to be however many words I write before I get sick of going over the scenes over and over again. :)

Fun Fact: The only other person in the Harry Potter world that we know _for sure_ developed their magic and used it with intent before age 11 was Tom Riddle. (No, that's not foreshadowing, I don't plan to have her go dark-side. Just thought it was interesting.) Obviously Mia is gaining a lot more control over her magic and a lot sooner than him, but I'm excusing that as her having the help of runes and years of practice. She's also using known spells instead of simply bending magic to her will like Tom.

Yes, I know that Sully was supposed to show up when Sam was nine, not ten, but just play along and pretend with me that Sam didn't start feeling really lonely until Mia got worked up about all this and dove into full-research mode and John took Dean along for a hunt. I'd been contemplating whether I wanted to bring Sully into the story or not since Sam has Mia. This way, she gets wrapped up in research and Sully can still enter the scene. I'm not sure if I'll weave him into the story as a more active character yet or not, but that was a fun scene to write.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to ask. I read all my reviews and I'll respond to questions, but if you would prefer to PM me, that's totally fine.

Thank you for reading, and have an awesome day!

~SD


	4. Chapter 4: Fireworks

Hello, dearest readers!

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I'm terribly sorry for that. Between medical issues and writer's block I've had a seriously hard time thinking up good scenes for their childhood, so this chapter is just one scene for the moment. It will also be acting as a sort of placeholder chapter, though, and I'll add more scenes of them growing up here as I write them but for now I'm going to try and get closer to season one (where the bulk of what I've already written is) rather than staying stuck here.

To those who have reviewed, followed and/or favorited, thank you so much. Whenever I get a notification it makes my day just a little bit brighter.

* * *

4th July 1996

Dean opened the trunk to show Sam and Mia a box full of fireworks. Sam's eyes bugged as he half yelped, "Seriously?!"

Dean smiled widely at Sammy's thunderstruck expression and how his eyes were flickering between him and the contents of the trunk. "Hah, yeah man, seriously."

"Awesome!" Sam hoisted the crate of fireworks unsteadily up into his arms and fast-walked away from the car towards the field. While Mia jogged to catch up with him, her twin turned back to Dean, "Come _on_ , let's go!"

"Yeah, come on, big bro!" Mia walked backwards and stuck her tongue out at Dean, prompting him to run up and sling her over a shoulder which made her squeak indignantly. She knew from experience he wouldn't put her down till he was good and ready, so she resigned herself to her position and did her best to look behind her to see what Sammy was doing.

Her hyper twin set the box down in the middle of the clearing, selecting three roman candles. He brought them over to Dean and asked excitedly, "Got your lighter?"

Dean hoisted his sister off his shoulder and pulled out the requested item, "Psh, always. Mimi'd kill me if I lost her present."

She brushed off invisible dirt from her shoulder and stated boldly, "Damn right, I would."

Sam only rolled his eyes at their antics but was still smiling. He handed one to Mia and shook the other two in his hands impatiently, "Well, fire 'em up!"

Dean obligingly lit them and Sam handed one over to him and the boys both held theirs up in the air in one hand over their heads. Hermione cautiously two-handed hers as far away from her body as possible, head leaning back. But as the lights burst and cracked overhead, she relaxed a bit and said in a soft tone, "So pretty…"

When the fireworks died out Sam turned to Dean with a never-ending wide smile, "Dad would _never_ let us do anything like this. Thanks Dean, this is great." He gave a hug to his older brother, and Mia jumped in on it.

"Thank you, Dean!"

Squished between the two, he smirked and asked them smugly, "Who's your favorite big brother?"

Mia snorted, "You're our only big brother!"

They both pulled back as Sam retorted smartly, "Well, yeah, but he's also the best at big brothering."

She folded her arms and tapped a finger against her bottom lip as if she was deep in thought. "I _suppose_ you're right, Zan. Agreed."

Dean spread his arms out grandly, "What, do I get a trophy or something?"

They managed to say at the same time, "Nope!" Sam looked at Mia and she smirked back. They both jumped at him again and Mia yelled, "Just more hugs!"

Dean rolled his eyes, then gently batted them away with shooing motions. "Well enough of the gooey stuff, go pick the next fireworks!"

He watched in amusement as they dug into the box, scattering the small explosives all over the place.

"Oooo Sam, did you see any sparklers? I've always wanted to try one!"

"The ones you can write in the air with?"

"Yeah!"

After they went through half the fireworks and a lot of laughs, Dean went to the box and fiddled with it for a while, lit a fuse, told the two of them to back up as he herded them away and back towards the car.

The twins did as they were told, but Mia's curiosity led her to ask, "What'd you do?"

He moved to stand between them, one hand on each of their shoulders. With a wicked gleam in his eye he leaned in and said conspiratorially, "Fuse management. You'll see."

And they did see, because he'd given them a firework show. They each wrapped an arm around his midsection and tucked into his sides.

It was a beautiful moment that their big brother had made just for them, an audience of only three.

The peace only lasted about five minutes; they realized it was bad spot for fireworks when the fire started.

Sam grimaced, "Uh oh."

Hermione stretched her hands out and cast aguamenti, but the fire had quickly spread to the point where dumping buckets of water over it wouldn't help in the slightest. "Dean?" Mia looked up at him, her expression screaming 'What do we do?!'.

Fight or flight. If even Mia couldn't do anything to fight the fire, there was really only one option. "Let's blast, guys."

Sammy heard the command in his tone and took off toward the car but Mia panicked a bit and couldn't take her eyes off the growing flames, wringing her hands nervously in front of her. "We are in _so_ much trouble!"

Dean grabbed her hand and tugged her back, "Only if we're caught. That's why we're getting the hell outta here, c'mon!"

A few miles away, the fear induced adrenaline started to wear off and he pulled off to the side of the road when Mia started word vomiting, "We are going to be in _so_ much trouble, I mean, I don't know the _exact_ punishment for setting a field on fire so I don't know if we're gonna get arrested or anything but we'll have to pay a fine at the very least so Dad will find out and he's gonna be _pissed_ and-"

Both brothers turned around to stare at her in shock at just how many words she managed to get out without stopping for breath until Dean finally just reached back and covered her mouth with his hand. "We didn't get caught. Mimi, unwind!"

She was the first to devolve into nervous giggles, but soon all three of them were laughing, enjoying the moment. No chick flick moments, indeed.

* * *

These are some scene ideas I've either half-written or just made notes about, please let me know via review or pm if you'd like to see one in particular first so I can try and focus on that instead of all of them at once.

-John takes the kids to the Roadhouse and they meet the Harvelle family

-Mia and Sam's point of view when Dean gets sent to the boy's home

-Sam writing about a werewolf hunt for a school project

-Pastor Jim babysitting

Or if you noticed a reference to a childhood event in the series (or an idea of your own) that you'd like me to write up, let me know!


	5. Chapter 5: Honesty

Hi there, everyone! I know, I'm horrible and I'm sorry that I haven't updated in forever, but this story is neither forgotten nor abandoned. Thank you so much to everyone who has followed and added my story as a favorite even though it's been such a long time. Special thanks to those who took the time to review! :)

This chapter is the last one before we'll get into season one territory, so we'll see episode one events in the next chapter.

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Fall 2003 - (After Sam left, before the show)

"So this is where you've been spending all your free time for the last year?" He squinted at the pavement ahead, obviously not seeing anything but a sea of trees on either side of the winding one lane service road. "Did you build us a treehouse safehouse?"

Mia smirked, "A treehouse was _your_ childhood fantasy. What was mine?"

He pursed his lips and thought it over for a moment, "You wanted… a library vault, if I remember right. I have to be right, 'cause what kid says no to a treehouse? Treehouses are the shit."

Mia ignored the jibe about her unchildlike behavior and directed him to slow down. After Dean eased on the brakes, she passed him a set of coordinates on a sticky note and told him, "The Winchester Command Center is here."

Dean's eyes widened as a turnoff appeared out of nowhere up ahead on their right. "O-kay."

"I'll explain once we're inside. Just drive for now." She snatched the note back and with a flick of the wrist it flared into a fireball for a split second and she vanished the ash before Dean could complain about dirtying his car.

The hideout that they would come to call home was pretty awesome, if she did say so herself. Dean would also call it the Sanctum Sanctorum among other things, but that's besides the point. Its original purpose was to house all of her research and experiments of the magical sort, hidden away in practically the middle of nowhere in the mountains of eastern Utah. To get there you had to take a little used highway and miles of even less used access roads just to get to her little magically hidden road that only her brothers and father would have access to it. Even if someone decided to skip the road and try to hike, anyone not keyed to the wards would find themselves coming up with very valid reasons to go the opposite direction or take the scenic route. Crafting these made her very glad Hermione had put so much effort into learning wards while they were on the run. No one else in this world knew those spells, so no one had the counter-spells. She was still pretty smug about that.

Mia gave her big brother a tour of the place, starting with the spacious four-car garage. She doubted that the family would ever actually have three let alone four cars that needed to be stored here (Mia had no need to drive to it), but this way both Baby and John's truck would have extra space if the boys wanted to do some work on them, which was probable at some point. Dean took a few extra minutes to admire the quality of the tools she'd supplied with a smile. He looked over at her with a raised brow, and she admitted freely, "I asked Dad what was best."

He shook his head with a smile that pulled up on one side, "Of course you did. Alright, let's see the rest." He clapped his hands together and looked around for the door to get in, then followed Mia to it as she waved him along.

"So," Mia informed him, "the front entrance is the garage door, since there's not much point to an outside door when I can just pop in and you guys would have to drive here anyways. Kitchen is the first right, living/sitting/drinking room is first left. Second to sixth on the left are bedrooms, they each have their own bathrooms." She folded her arms and huffed, "Tell you what, figuring out how to tie magical plumbing to mundane fixtures was a pain."

His brows raised as he meandered over to rummage through the fridge, "This place is magic-only? Totally off the grid?"

"Yep."

"Niiiice." Not seeing a classic pink box, he popped his head out from behind the fridge door, "Hey, where's the pie?"

"Brown box, second shelf." She'd known that would be one of the first questions, and made sure to have a couple pies in reserve. There were two in stasis in one of the cabinets, but she'd save those for later. Just in case.

He cut and plated an eighth sized slice for her and a quarter slice for himself, making her laugh.

They sat on the kitchen counter for a bit as she explained how she used runes and spells to make the faucets and toilets work without needing to draw or dump water anywhere. In essence, the water was conjured by magic when you turned on the tap for the sink or shower or hose, or pressed the lever for the toilet, and all the used water and dirt and… everything else… was vanished by magic on the other end. She demonstrated by showing Dean the lack of piping under the kitchen sink. Then she went on to explain how the electricity came from a generator charmed to work without the need for fuel. She showed him her room, the second door on the left, then the library across from her, which Dean made impressed sounds about but had no trouble skipping.

She moved another door down to a room he'd appreciate better, the movie room. "The good news is that there is one, the bad news is that you can't actually use any of the electronics yet, I'm still tinkering with the rune scheme to protect them from magic surges. Battery operated is fine now, but plug-ins tend to burn out after a couple of days." It was decorated like a theater, complete with popcorn machine and projectors of various sizes and makes, including a new one that hooked up to dvd players and video game consoles. She'd set up four La-Z-Boy chairs in there, but Dean huffed that it was unlikely that all four of them would ever be there at the same time, (mostly meaning Sam, but secondarily their oft-absent father) and dragged one of the chairs to the living room.

She followed him with a smirk on her face and teased, "You could have just said you wanted one in the living room for yourself, ya know."

He shrugged it off and retrieved his pie from her, then pointed with his fork as he commanded theatrically, "On to the next one!"

She showed him to the next room on the right, which was the pool room. A room with a pool table, that is. Not a swimming pool. Actually, she hadn't even thought of putting a swimming pool in, since they didn't exactly have a backyard, but indoor pools weren't unheard of… Eh, if he brought it up she'd consider it.

"Sweet!" Dean chirped as he poked his head in, but elected to continue eating pie over taking the table for a trial run. The room next to it was mostly empty except for an air hockey table, mostly because she'd known Dean always wanted one. "Can you make this room bigger?" He finished the request by shoving an extra large last bite into his mouth and handed the empty plate to her.

She accepted the dish and sent it flying to the kitchen sink as she shrugged, "Sure, I can make the room go back as far as there is mountain."

He told her through the mouthful of pie he was still working on, "Awes'm, we shud put arcade m'sheens in ere."

"Like pinball and Street Fighter and stuff?" She nodded thoughtfully, "I could definitely do that. We'll have to see what's available. Keep an eye out on your jobs for stores that might carry them and we'll have them sent to my California apartment. I'll move them here from there."

"My experiments room is at the end of the hall. It's got all sorts of protections to keep any accidents inside, but I wanted to keep it a good distance away from the living areas and the library." She backtracked a bit to the third room on the left, "This, though, is your room."

Dean's smile was slow but especially bright. "My own room." He giggled. _Giggled_! He darted in and the first thing he did was flop himself down on the bed. "Dude, this is awesome!"

After a thorough exploration of the rest of his room, closet, and bathroom, he tested the wall-mounted mini basketball hoop that she knew he'd always wanted. "He shoots, he scores!" His fists went into the air as he graciously accepted the cheers of the nonexistent audience.

Mia showed him the bare bones of Sam and John's rooms, and he took a half-interested peek into the experiments room which was pretty boring for him since Mia wasn't doing any active testing that day. He spent a few minutes making a list of everything he wanted to get to customize his room to his liking, though he left it open to future additions. He was sure to mention that she'd forgot to put in a shooting range.

After a sarcastic, "How could I ever have forgot that?" she assured him that she'd get to work on it soon. Meaning eventually.

After feeding him dinner, she nervously shepherded him to the living room.

Mia laid out on the couch, propping her legs up on her big brother's lap. Not only was it comfortable, it'd make it harder for him to get away from her if he reacted badly. She could always immobilize him, but if she used her magic on him like that it would break something between them. A tripping jinx when they were racing for the last cookie, sure. Keeping him a prisoner, unable to move his own body when he wanted to leave? Not so much. So she would just make it as physically inconvenient as possible for him to storm away without hearing her out first. He'd probably listen, though. Hopefully.

Looking at the setup she had ready for them he said tentatively, "So, you've got something serious to tell me, if the bottle of whiskey on the table means anything."

She tugged at a loose curl that had escaped her ponytail and twirled it nervously. "Yeah…" Her mind briefly flipped through her mental manual of various stalling tactics, but with Dean just getting it out and saying it was the best way to go. "You know how I taught you to block your mind?" On the other hand, maybe a little groundwork before telling your brother you used to be someone who only lived in a book.

He nodded and shrugged his shoulders casually, "Sure. Comes in handy every once in a while with some monsters."

She hummed in agreement, but her eyes were focusing on pretty much everything in the room but his face, "Well there's a really important reason, other than your safety, of course, that I spent so many years forcing you to master it." She focused, took a breath, and stared him in the eyes, "What I'm about to tell you goes into a tightly locked safe buried in an unmarked hole behind those walls. So if you don't want to worry about protecting this secret, I can… well, not tell you, I guess. I'll understand."

Dean leaned forward over her legs and poured them each two fingers while she snagged a couple extra couch pillows and put them behind her back to prop herself up. She took the offered drink and took a sip of the smooth alcohol to steady herself. Her silence must have stretched out longer than she realized because he shook her leg a little, which was comforting in its own way, and told her gently, "Spill the beans, Carmen Sandiego."

She gave a little half smile and relented. "Do you remember when I was eight, and I had a particularly bad nightmare?"

He frowned, trying to think back. "Geez, that's a long time ago. But I think so, yeah… whenever you had nightmares you were usually fine once I woke you up, but there was one time you kept crying for a while afterward." He scrunched his nose, "You said you dreamed you were someone else who died or something?"

She nodded and took a healthy gulp of the liquid and sighed as it burned its way down her throat. "Yeah. That was a lie. Well, sort of. She did die. Was killed, actually. I told you she was a psychic, but the truth is I dreamed that I was Hermione Granger."

His face scrunched up again. "Like from Harry Potter? That's not _that_ bad. I didn't realize the books came out that long ago."

She took a deep breath, "The first book wasn't published until 1997."

He stared at her blankly for about ten seconds as his brain did the math and made the connection. She could tell when he got it, because he abruptly leaned forward over her legs again to pour himself another, much bigger glass. "So... what exactly is it you're telling me? You saw the future and you dreamed of a character before the book existed?" Thankfully he wasn't tense, which would mean he didn't believe her or was freaked out. This was more 'I don't understand and am sorting through the info or at least trying to' kind of body language.

What she said next would not help that at all, since it just got more unbelievable from there. "No, I'm telling you that before I was Mia Winchester, I _was_ that fictional character." He obviously didn't know what to say to that, so she just took a deep swig of whiskey and let the verbal vomit commence. "It was weird, when I woke up that night, I had experienced…wait, no that's not right. More like… I _remembered_ twenty plus years of life as Hermione Granger, including her torture and death." Dean stiffened at that and the hand not holding his glass tightened on her calf, but she just plowed on, "But after a couple days, it was just… the past, you know? You think about it sometimes, and it stays with you, but once I sorted it all out in my head it wasn't debilitating anymore. Not like it was right after I woke up. I don't really know why this version of me has magic, but I know that the reason I can do the spells that I do is because I had eight years of magical training and battle under my belt already, and as Mia I only built on that. Obviously in this timeline or universe or…" Her free hand fluttered in the air awkwardly as she searched for the right word and couldn't find it, " _whatever_ this is, magic users don't have wands but if you think about it a lot of the spells I use are in those movies. That's how I teleport, how I move things. By hunter standards I'm not a witch because I didn't sell my soul for my powers, but in _that_ version of the world witches didn't have to sell their souls to be a witch. At least, if there were demon-powered witches I didn't hear or read about them. Is this making any sense so far?"

He pursed his lips, "I'm working on it." After a few minutes of silence and a refill for both of them, he spoke up again, "You didn't act weird when you woke up though. Just upset. Did having that dream, like, add a personality in your head? Or was it like watching a movie? Or was it Matrix-style downloading the knowledge?"

"I really don't know. I mean, I know that I am Mia, but I also know that at one time I was Hermione. I don't have a Hermione-voice in my head that I converse with or anything, if that's what you meant by another personality. It wouldn't say it was like watching a movie, because I remembered what it _felt_ like. I highly doubt that I randomly… downloaded the life of a fictional character that didn't exist yet, and seeing what I can do it's obviously not just in my head. And the last two books aren't out yet, but I have the feeling that this world's version of the story is going to be a very heavily edited version of what happened in the life I have in my head. The books so far already deviate. And once the war really starts, it gets… bad."

His hand patted her calf comfortingly as he said, "Kid books have happy endings. Your time as Hermione didn't have that luxury." The last bit could have been a question, but he didn't ask for an answer - you didn't have to be a genius to see it didn't end well.

She smiled a bit tremulously, but grateful all the same because he'd understood that she didn't see Hermione as a separate entity, but as an extension of her past self, and he probably didn't have to think about it at all to just _get it_. Sometimes he could be so obtuse, but when it really mattered he was somehow always on the nose.

When she didn't respond verbally, he asked without really asking, "You said torture and death."

By this point, the alcohol had loosened her tongue a bit. "Yeah. That sucked." She absently took another sip of her drink and continued, "Its probably the biggest reason I didn't fight you and Dad more about going out on hunts. I've already seen years of wear and tear from being on the front lines, battling the big bad, hero chasing. It was the right thing to do, but it was terrible. But like I said, it's in the past. In this life, here, with you guys, I've found balance." She spread her arms out and up, "It was one of the main reasons I built this place. When Harry, Ron, and I escaped, we… they… Ugh, whatever. There was never a safe place to hide, we were always on the run, living out of a tent and starving and hoping that we wouldn't get caught. At first I made it so this would be that safe place for our family, more of a last resort kind of thing. I also built it as my magical test site since I never know what magical knowledge is applicable and what isn't until I try it. It was only while I was building it that I realized it didn't apply to just me. I mean, I have an apartment that's pretty safe, but you and Dad are always on the move, you know? So I decided to make this a home."

"Instead of just a safe house or a testing site," he finished her line of thinking for her. "I'm glad you did." He started laughing, "Sorry, I know you're being serious right now, but… it would have been great to have a place like this when we were kids. Explaining magical mishaps hasn't ever been very easy, even when you were having accidents with little things." He laughed a little harder, "Imagine if you'd turned a whole building orange and blue?"

She chuckled at the mental image, "Yeah, and memory alteration without a wand is not something I've done human testing for, either, so it's not like I could have just wiped the memory of anyone who'd seen it happen."

He pursed his lips and tilted his head back and forth, "Maybe come with me on a hunt sometime, do some monster-testing instead?"

She mimicked him as she gave a considering head bob side to side, "Could do." She frowned, wiggled her legs back and forth a bit, and on the verge of petulance and pouting she told him, "You know, you're taking this a lot better than I thought you would. I broke out the good liquor and everything."

He half-smiled, half-smirked in what turned out to be a very cocky grin. "I always knew it had to be something. Sam and I actually bet over it, because you started being able to do a whole bunch of things that he never did find in any book."

She pursed her lips, "I told you guys it was Susan and Pamela's proprietary spell collection."

"Except neither of them can do your kind of magic."

"Ehhh… I wasn't so good with the lying back then." She changed her voice to mimic the Monty Python and the Holy Grail quip, "I got better."

Dean chuckled, "That you did. Wait. Now I'm curious, exactly how _did_ Volvo-mart stay alive after baby-Harry ganked him?"

She choked on her drink a little at the name and started laughing, "I'm sorry… it's just… but Volvo-mart… oh, man…" The name that struck fear into the hearts of witches and wizards so much that they wouldn't even say the name, and her brother absolutely _butchers_ it.

After calming down she took a sip of her drink and let out a sigh that deflated her amusement, then explained, "Horcruxes, they're called. He murdered people to split his soul and put the pieces he'd ripped out of himself in containers to keep his spirit tethered to the physical world."

Dean cringed in disgust then shook his head with loose cheeks to the effect of a 'hrblrblrbl' sound, followed up by, "I hope that's one of the things that only your type of magic can do, because you'd never do it."

She sighed, "Me too. There's a lot of demon-magic spells that I don't know about, though, so let's just hope that's not one of them."

"So. I assume you won't appreciate any Harry Potter-related magic jokes?"

She nodded firmly, "Definitely not. I died for those people."

"10-4," he agreed, though he looked extremely uncomfortable at the thought of her dying.

She lifted her legs up and swung them around to put her feet on the ground and set her glass down on the coffee table. "Permission for sappy moment?"

He gave a half-laugh and set his glass down, too, then opened his arms. "Granted. C'mere."

She smiled and let herself be engulfed in a comforting hug from her big brother. They sat there in silence for a while, and he just rocked her back and forth like he did when she was little.

When he finally spoke up he told her, "Hermione, Mia, or any combo of the two. You're _my_ baby sister. I don't know if Hermione had a brother, but from the moment you… I dunno, remembered her life, I guess, she became part of you. And you always have been, and always will be my family."

Mia cherished the times he ignored his own 'no chick flick moments' rule but knew not to keep it going or he'd get uncomfortable, so she blinked back her tears and told him softly, "You're the best."

He patted the top of her head, "I know. Probably don't tell Sam any of this until all of the books are out. He'll geek at you for spoilers."

Her laugh was a bit watery, but genuine all the same.

A question struck him, and he blurted out, "So why don't you have a magic stick?"

With the atmosphere much lightened, the siblings spent the rest of the night ignoring the horrible things and stayed up late, drinking and being silly and reminiscing about their shared past rather than the one she spent with no protective big brother.

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Thanks for reading, and have an awesome day!


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